


Kintsugi

by Maiden_of_the_Moon



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: (sorta) - Freeform, Bonus points for noticing all the "subtle" references to the opening theme haha, Episode Related, Ice Skating, M/M, Metaphors, POV Second Person, Stream of Consciousness, That episode being 12, You are Yuuri, You-ri one might say
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-12
Updated: 2017-02-12
Packaged: 2018-09-23 18:38:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9671138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maiden_of_the_Moon/pseuds/Maiden_of_the_Moon
Summary: Kintsugi: The art of repairing broken pottery with gold or silver, of honoring the past by turning damage into beauty.It’s that first moment on ice after too many months from the rink.





	

**Disclaimer:** Nope.

 **Author’s Note:** Asfkasdfklads my dudes I got to go ice skating for the first time in years yesterday and it was #amazing. 

**Warnings:** Second person PoV. Stream-of-conscious-y. Spoilers for episode 12? No beta and only edited once because jfc I have things I should be doing right now why am I like this

  
**XXX**

**Kintsugi**

**XXX**  


It’s that first moment on ice after too many months from the rink.

It’s the wobble in your ankles, the tension in your tendons. It’s the laces that you draw too tight, if only by a fraction, because you can’t quite trust yourself to leave them loose around your shins. You know better— of course you do— but knowing better has never stopped you before. Knowing better has never stopped anyone before. You don’t stop. 

You decide: 

It’s the cold air that bites pink into your cheeks, that leaves your eyes dry. Self-doubt has rusted out the bottom of your bowels— you have been away for so _long_ — and for an instant you’re unsure if the rushing in your ears is that of blood or your stomach when it drops, leaden, to the ground, three inches farther beneath you than it had been before. 

It’s knowing that this is dangerous, plain and simple. Falling is inevitable, and you will get hurt. You _will_ get hurt.

But it hurts to stay away, too. And you have learned that, sometimes, it hurts _less_ to botch a jump than it does not to take it. Safety brings with it its own kind of pain. 

There is nothing safe in what you do. Not even remotely, and no one in their right mind would ever be stupid enough to believe otherwise. You are porcelain bones and a glass heart and a shadow stretched long beneath florescent lights, balanced on a tightrope of blades. When you hesitate on the precipice, it is because you are not an idiot, despite what certain decisions might suggest. You waver on the edge, clinging to the wall—literal sometimes, metaphorical now— and to ideas of self-preservation; your nails bite into the plush of woolen gloves, and you think: _Yes, that’s it._

That is what this is. 

It’s putting one skate in front of the other. It’s moving. It’s moving _forward_. It’s the buzz of fear transmogrifying into swooping adrenaline, anxiety pushed out of your skin and left to tingle as a cold sweat in the cut lines of your palms. It’s gliding, it’s _flying_ , and you mourn the years that you wasted walking on pavement, flat-footed in your worn sneakers. You told yourself you hadn’t forgotten the _thrill_ , but you had: Solid ground is certain, and it is reliable, but it lacks excitement.

There is excitement now. You can’t believe how much excitement there is now: It swells in your chest and bursts through your ribs, breaking the seams of your favorite jacket. Your heart is pounding so deafeningly loud, you are certain that others must hear it. You are moving to its rhythm. You are pushing yourself faster, faster, _faster_ , hair whipping in the chill, and realizing in a strange, epiphanic moment that you have not been going in pointless circles like you once thought, but are instead spiraling meaningfully inward, away from the corners that you had hidden in and into the brilliant spotlight. 

You are barreling, reckless, in your haste to reach the center. You cannot wait to close your eyes, to strike your pose, to hear the music that lives in your veins start pouring out over the loudspeakers.

Because _that_ is what this is, you decide again: It’s that first moment. It’s the beginning of something that hadn’t ever really ended. It’s _one more time, Yuuri_ and _let’s take it from the top, Yuuri_ , and the thunderous sound of applause and city busses; it’s seeing your lover on the other side of a bridge, an arm raised and waving, your name on his lips and pure love in his smile. It’s putting one foot in front of the other, relief welling warm and liquid in your breast as months of tension melt away: The angst of being apart, the stress of the move, the what-ifs and whys and self-deprecation that creep into your cracks sometimes, along with all the other blackness that you are slowly learning to turn to gold on your own. 

“Yuuri!”

Your breath is silvery before you. His ring’s gilt is glinting in the sun. 

“Viktor!” 

When you are close enough to make the jump, you do so, and it is fearless, because falling was so inevitable that it happened long ago.

**XXX**


End file.
